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He was woken by a loud, really annoying thumping on his bedroom door. “Marty,” said Linda’s voice from the other side. “Marty, are you still asleep?”
Marty didn’t bother raising his face from the pillow. “Huh?”
“Marty.”
The bedroom door opened and jerking semi-awake he scrambled for a blanket. “Hey!”
“Jennifer wants to talk to you,” she said from the doorway. He eyes rolled down his half-exposed body. “And put some pants on.”
The door slammed. He pressed his face back into the pillow and felt about on his nightstand for the phone. “Yo.”
“Marty,” said Jennifer. “I have a cat.”
“You what?” He was maybe three-quarters awake. It took him a second to figure out what she meant. “You got a cat?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I did not get a cat. I have a cat. I woke up this morning and it was in my house and when I asked my mom where it came from she laughed like I was kidding and when I said no, for real, when did we get this cat she looks at me like I’ve gone crazy and you know what she says?”
“No?” he said, half into the pillow.
“Five years ago,” she said. “So I think it’s pretty obvious what’s happened here.”
In his three-quarters conscious state, it was in no way obvious what was going on. He screwed up his eyes and willed his brain to work. After an embarrassingly long couple of seconds, it clicked. “Oh – it happened again?”
“Yes, it’s happening again!” She sounded pretty upset about it.
Marty sat up. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Talk to the Doc or something.”
“Jen, he’s not even in town,” Marty reminded her. They hadn’t heard from the Doc in a couple of weeks. It was getting hard to know when to expect him to show up.
“Well, when he’s back, you gotta tell him to quit it,” said Jennifer, which was about one of the most optimistic statements he’d ever heard.
“Yeah, I,” he said. “I don’t think that’s gonna help.”
“Marty!” she wailed down the phone.
“Are you okay?” he said. “Do you not like the cat or something?”
She didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to be able to see her face to detect her consternation. “The cat’s adorable and it loves me but that’s not the point,” she said. “Marty, what if it’s not just the cat? Is everything normal at your house?”
“Uh.” He did a quick scan of his bedroom. “I don’t know. Everything looks regular in my room. I haven’t talked to anyone today so I don’t really –”
“Aw, did you just wake up?”
“It’s Sunday,” he protested.
“It’s the afternoon. Jesus! I figured you’d be awake by now,” she grumbled. He heard her heave a sigh. “Marty. It’s happening again and I can’t deal with it.”
He adjusted his grip on the phone. “Do you want me to come over?”
The line hummed for a second. “I’d like that.”
“Okay.” He shifted on the bed. “Just let me find some pants and I’ll be right over.”
“Fine,” she said. “But when you get here I need you to do something for me.”
Switching the phone to his other hand he examined the floor by his feet for any sign of his pants. “Oh, yeah?”
“I need you to talk to my mom,” she said, “and ask what this goddamn cat’s name is.”
“What?” He twisted, checking the floor on the other side of the bed. “Why can’t you ask her?”
“Cause that’d be weird!”
“And me asking won’t be weird?”
“It’ll look a whole lot weirder for me to forget what my own cat’s called than for you to forget, yeah,” she said; then, dropping her voice lower, “It’s not like it’d be out of character or anything.”
“What?” he said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Marty, you forgot where you took your pants off last night,” she pointed out.
“Nuh-uh,” he said. “I took my pants off in bed. I just don’t remember where I put ‘em afterwards.”
She sighed down the phone at him again. “Did you try under your pillow?”
He lifted up the pillow. “Hey, yeah! Thanks.”
“God,” she said. “You’re ridiculous. See you soon. Find out the cat’s name and if it’s a boy cat or a girl cat and do not be weird about it. Okay?”
She hung up. Half in half out of his pants, Marty flopped back down on the bed and buried his face in his hands. “Ah, shit.”
*
“Yeah,” said Marty, crouched on her bedroom rug. “That sure is a cat.”
Jennifer threw up her hands. “Not helping!”
“I’m just – I’m not sure what you want me to do here, Jen.” He got to his feet. “Do you want me to take the cat away? Cause I can get rid of the cat –”
“What?” she said, baffled. “No, I don’t want you to get rid of the cat!”
“Oh, that’s great.” He breathed out, visibly relieved. “Cause, I don’t know how to get rid of a cat.”
The cat was a big, fluffy calico. It was, in all honesty, a really pretty cat. She liked the cat. When she was younger she’d asked her mom and dad for a cat a bunch of times and they’d said no. It was hard to be happy about that refusal somehow getting reversed.
“Can you please,” she said, “please just talk to the Doc? He might listen to you.”
Marty shrugged. “I said I’d talk to him. I just don’t think it’s gonna help. The cat’s cute, right?”
“You are not getting this.” She got up from her chair. “The cat’s nice and, and it keep snuggling me because it thinks I’m its mama or something and I’m sure I’ll get used to having a cat, but it’s not.” She began to pace, agitated. “Today it’s the cat. Last month I tried to go the drugstore and when I got there it had been a bookstore for twenty years, and, and next week it could be anything! Does that really not bother you?”
“I think it’s best to roll with the punches,” he said, which was not helpful.
“What if we wake up tomorrow and we’re stuck in some kind of messed up timeline where Biff is president of the world?” she said. “What if –”
“Jen – you weren’t even conscious for the Biff timeline,” he reminded her.
“That is not the point!” The cat was rubbing up against her leg. She ignored it. “What if it happens again?”
“If we end up in another bad timeline, I’ll look after you,” he said.
“That’s sweet,” she said. “But what if I end up in a bad timeline where you were never born?”
“Jen –”
“And now I have this cat!” She gestured at it, lounging back on the rug, entirely unbothered by the conversation happening around it. “And I don’t know the cat but the cat knows me and the cat remembers a version of me that loves it and I’m not that version of me and I don’t know what happened to that me, and, and –”
“Jen,” he said, crossing the room, taking her arms. “Jennifer. You’re freaking out.”
“Why aren’t you freaking out?” she shot back.
“Just breathe,” he said, pulling her into a hug. She pressed her face into his shoulder, and breathed.
Sitting back down in her chair, she put her head in her hands. “You’ll talk to him. Right?”
“Jen, I’ll try, but I’m pretty sure he’s gonna say that if you like having the cat then he doesn’t see the problem.” He settled himself on the edge of her bed.
“What – because you think he’ll agree with you?” she shot back. It was kind of mean. He was only trying to help. She was not in the best mood.
Marty rubbed at his ear. “Cause that’s basically what he said about my family.”
“Oh.”
That shut her up. It suddenly felt kind of rude to be getting all upset over something as petty as having a perfectly nice cat in her room when not that long ago Marty had, apparently, woken up to a house full of strangers. The cat, on the rug, remained unbothered.
She said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Am I – different?”
He shifted on the bed. “What do you mean?”
“Since the timeline changed or whatever,” she said. “Am I different?”
She saw something pass across his face as it registered just what she meant. Absently he grabbed a teddy from the end of her bed and turned it over in his hands. “Not so’s I’ve noticed. Why?” She shrugged. “Am I different?”
Biting her lip, she wondered if she ought to lie. “Kinda,” she admitted. “Yeah.”
“What?” At the look in his eyes she regretted her honesty. “What do you mean? Different how?”
“It’s hard to explain,” she said. “I don’t think you’re a lot different.”
He was gripping the teddy pretty tight. “Not different like my family’s different?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t really know.”
“Huh – yeah,” he said. “I guess you wouldn’t.”
It honestly kind of reassured her that he’d sometimes forget she didn’t remember how his family used to be. She must be basically unchanged, for him to keep on forgetting that she wasn’t the same Jennifer.
He’d told her some of what his life used to be liked – that his dad hadn’t been a writer, that his brother used to work at Burger King, that kind of stuff – but a lot of what she knew she’d picked up from stuff he’d said in those lapses. Like that his parents hadn’t been happy together – like how he was used to having less money – like he used to resent his dad – like his mom didn’t used to like her.
He could get kind of defensive about stuff. He was a whole lot more insecure. It could get kinda grating. At the same time, he seemed a little more thoughtful; less wrapped up in his own stuff. He’d give her these looks like whoa, I can’t believe you’re actually my girlfriend. He didn’t used to do that.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “It’s not like I like you any less or anything.”
She meant it. So, maybe she missed the way he used to be sometimes – but she really did mean it. It was weird, huh? You’d say stuff like I’ll love you forever, no matter what but she figured most people didn’t get the opportunity to put it to the test. Not like this. But she’d loved the old Marty and she loved this Marty and she was pretty sure she’d have loved the Marty from the messed-up Biff timeline, if she’d got to meet him.
Sighing, Marty flopped down on his back. “Heavy,” he remarked to the ceiling.
“Yeah,” she agreed. Neither of them spoke for a second.
The cat hopped up onto the bed and climbed confidently onto Marty’s stomach. “Oof,” he said, struggling to sit up. “Hey – ow –”
“I think it likes you,” Jennifer laughed.
“I guess so.” He looked down at the cat, taken aback by its sudden display of affection. He patted its head. “I’m really more of a dog person.”
“Not in this timeline,” she said. “Okay. Okay. Will you please go ask my mom what it’s called? I’ve been trying out different names all morning and I can’t tell if it’s not paying attention because they’re wrong or if it just doesn’t answer to its name.”
“I don’t know if cats do that,” he said. “Alright.” He eased the cat, with some difficulty, off his lap onto the floor. “Off – hey – off.” He headed for the door. “I’ll be two seconds.”
He was considerably longer than two seconds – long enough for her to start to get kind of bored – and when he came back he was eating a sandwich.
“Your mom found out I hadn’t eaten today so she made me a sandwich,” he said around it.
“I can see that,” she said. “Marty. The cat?”
“Oh.” He nodded at it. “Girl. Her name’s Patches.”
“Patches!” She slid off her chair onto her knees. “Oh my God! Patches! Here, girl. C’mere!”
Patches shot her an imperious look and gave no other response. “Huh,” she said, dejected. “I guess she doesn’t do that.”
“See?” said Marty, joining her on the floor. “That’s why I’m a dog person.” He held out his hand to the cat. “Patches? Hey, Patches?” Unfolding herself from the floor Patches trotted over to sniff at his fingers, intrigued. “There we go. She likes me.”
“Aw, c’mon,” said Jennifer. “She’s only doing that because your hands smell like lunch meat.”
Patches climbed fully into Marty’s lap and began to make herself comfortable. “She loves me,” Marty said, slouching back against the side of her bed.
Jennifer rolled her eyes and opted to ignore him. She crawled around the rug and joined him by the bed, leaning against his shoulder. “So we just,” she said. “Take it as it comes. Huh?”
Marty put his arm around her. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.”